Hey everyone, hope you’re having a great summer so far! It’s been around 105°F here in Pasadena, which is just a few degrees above “pleasant.” As a reminder, if you haven’t received your download keys or your physical rewards, please message me on Kickstarter (or here) and we’ll get it squared away. Almost everything should have been delivered by now, barring the soundtrack and some late surveyors.

Along with plenty of bug fixes, the latest alpha update (v0.8.98a live on Itch and Steam) has bots enabled. The foundation for the bots was in place for a while, but they have a lot of logic now to react to the environment, search for opponents, and try and follow game mode objectives. Their logic will be improved with every update to address any feedback, but feel free to try them out!

Bots fighting bots

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve made serious headway into online play. I ran into a few stumbling blocks and it’s definitely not going to drop as early as I’d previously hoped, but most of the major technical barriers are out of the way. I’m focusing on the basics, starting with being able to connect via IP address. Currently connections, disconnections, player selection, game setup synchronization, and basic in-progress match actions are synced correctly.

IP connections and player synchronization

In all honesty, this foundation was one of the biggest hurdles and technical challenges, so it’s a relief that most of the issues have been resolved. It’s based on a new and not-so-battle-tested networking system in Unity, so it’s been somewhat painful for most early-adopter developers. We spend a lot of our dev cycles in networking forums, trying to figure out if bugs are on our end or theirs, helping each other, and trying to decipher incorrect documentation. There are lots of edge cases I need to find and tackle before turning the feature on, and after that, it will be more fixes and progress on public and private match listings.

While the focus was definitely 95% on network play, I managed to sneak in a couple of new Nemoris maps for testing, and I worked on some content lists for the final stretch. There is less time for experimentation at this point, though the game is by no means feature-locked (still alpha). I will still work with the Heroes to design new characters, and I’m still planning out the Cartographer details for the backer maps.

Ali and I have completed the soundtrack and the first final mix / mastering pass is complete! The updated tracks will be in the next update, though some of them still won’t be heard until their associated planets (Craterus and Arenae) are released. Stay tuned for crispy-sounding tracks in the next drop. Once all the final audio assets are in place, the game will go through an entire mix pass before release as well. And of course, those of you who backed the project at the Composer tier or higher will receive download codes for the soundtrack once it’s ready.

My time at the moment is divided between development and all the logistics for the upcoming conventions. We’ll have a booth (#6014) at PAX West from September 2-5, and also at XPO Tulsa from September 23-25. There’s a ton that goes into planning these, involving extra help, flights, hotels, shipping gear, arranging on-site resources, preparing promo materials, and of course, finalizing the convention game build. I want to thank you all again for supporting this campaign, as part of the funds were definitely reserved for this, and it’s because of you that we’ll have a presence there!

If you’ll be at any of the conventions, please stop by! I’d love to meet you in person, and I’ll have more expo details as the dates approach. This does mean that Invisigun development will slow down in September, though I’ll have the middle of the month for progress on that front.

That’s it for now, please enjoy the updates and while I can’t promise when, I hope to have network play via IP address turned on soonish!

If you have filled out your Kickstarter survey before April 25th, your physical rewards should have been shipped and delivered by this point (including international orders). If you believe you should have received your art prints and buttons but haven’t yet, please contact me and I’ll get it sorted out. For everyone who filled out their survey after April 25th, those are being processed now and will be shipping soon! I see people posting some tweets about receivingthem, and those are always very happy moments. :)

As always, those who care about details can view the ongoing development changelog here, but I’ll summarize the noteworthy stuff. I’ve basically completed laying the foundation for localization, so every bit of text in the entire game is now pulled from easily editable external files. This means that making it support other languages in the future will be very simple and just a matter of contracting out the translations. The June update has tonsof bug fixes, improvements, and performance optimizations, as well as a lot of work on online play connectivity. Most of the past month has been spent on the new network manager, which unfortunately means there isn’t a lot of new visuals to show off. However I am pleased to say that it is going well, and at the moment I can successfully connect to a remote host, and properly synchronize player selections and match settings. I’ve also resumed work on the AI for the bots, slowly but surely making them more intelligent and giving them motivations for their actions.

On the music front, Ali and I still have weekly production sessions and all the alternate planet tracks are very close to being complete. Here’s a sample of the secondary Glaciarii track (though please note that none of the tracks have gone through their final mixing and mastering phase yet), and also a little screenshot of what one of the production sessions looks like.

I’m also in the planning stages of having a presence at upcoming conventions later this year. The current alpha has been submitted to the Indie Megabooth, and I really hope it gets accepted for PAX West in Seattle! While I applied last year, it was a very early prototype and was before the Kickstarter campaign, PAX South, the positive press, being greenlit on Steam, and polish – so I hope my chances are much higher this year. The judging won’t be complete until July, so keep your fingers crossed!

In other convention news, I’m happy to say that Invisigun Heroes will also have a booth at the XPO Gaming Convention in Tulsa, Oklahoma (September 23-25, 2016). I met the organizers at PAX South, and they have been extremely accommodating, generous, and supportive – looking forward to it!

I’ll be heading out to E3 next week to check out the madness, and hope to see and meet some of you there. If you’ll be there, drop me a note!

My goal was to get the alpha version of Invisigun Heroes in the hands of the backers in early Summer, and I still stand by that. I’m working on making sure the current build is ultra stable, and I’ve already generated a couple thousand keys for you guys. The first drop will still be local-multiplayer only, but once it’s in your hands, there will be very frequent incremental updates with new features and systems being “turned on” all the time – including online play. I want to make sure everyone gets their copies first, and the basics of the game are working for everyone, then move onto all the new features, testing, and feedback. Following the distribution, it will also be time to start working on the new heroes and maps in collaboration with you guys!

Speaking of the alpha, I’ve decided to give all the Kickstarter backers both DRM-Free and Steam keys. I’ve been integrating the development tools provided by itch.io in my build pipeline, and I love their platform’s simplicity and everything their developers stand for. This means that when you get your copy, it will be a key you can redeem at itch.io, but Itch will also provide you with a Steam key as well. It’s the best of both worlds, and you aren’t forced to choose one over the other, and makes distribution logistically more simple on my end. Note that this is only for the backers, and all purchases post-launch will just be single keys from whichever site they buy it from.

This also means that once it’s in your hands, I can explore adding a purchase widget to the website, which many of you have recommended. Itch has an interesting new Refinery program to solve the problems that plague Steam’s early access system, and some developers are giving it a go – including Finji’s new title Overland. In fact, I believe Finji chose to publish Overland exclusively on Itch, which is a pretty big vote of confidence.

In other gaming news, Paper Unicorn has just launched a Kickstarter campaign for their awesome-looking sci-fi game, Transmission. I’ve met up with the art/creative director Nathaniel West several times, and there is nothing but passion and hard work poured into this project so far. The aesthetics and design are fantastic, and reminiscent of the tones from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien/Prometheus, and Blade Runner. Check it out and show them your support!

The backer rewards are shipping now, as noted by the last quick campaign update on Kickstarter. They’re still going out in batches as Gallery Nucleus gets to them, so keep an eye out for yours if you are a backer with a physical reward. Please note that there are pin(s) inside the packaging in a small brown paper bag, so don’t throw that out. Unless of course you can’t stand pins, then by all means, go right ahead. :|

Along with continuous bug fixing, miscellaneous todos, and ongoing ability / balance experimentation, work is progressing on the desert / temple planet, Arenae. I’m really happy with the progress and visuals so far, and it has an interesting new mechanic that involves switches to toggle various environmental changes. The first one implemented is for barrier tiles that retract into the floor, which can dynamically change the map layout. Up next will be shifting walls, which should also make for interesting map designs as well.

Arenae, the desert temple world

We’ve also been working hard on the music, and are almost through all the secondary tracks (each planet will have 2 associated music tracks). I’ll have a preview of the new music for Glaciarii in the next update.

A lot of the development work is stuff that isn’t necessarily interesting to most players or backers, but is necessary for the foundation of the game. Many development hours are spent on things like game event/notification systems, dialog boxes systems, in-house tools / map editor improvements, etc. They don’t make for very exciting updates, but are vital for release.

I’ve also had the privilege of talking with some press and podcasts over the last couple of months, so check out these episodes for some interviews with me about Invisigun development. They were all amazingly kind hosts.

Hi all! Gallery Nucleus has wrapped up production of all the art prints, and all the pins are also finished and ready to ship. Yujin and I have just finished signing them, and Ali will be adding his signature this week. Once that’s done, they’ll be ready to start sending out in batches, so be expecting yours soon!

Work continues briskly on Invisigun itself, and you can view a pretty active changelog that I try to keep updated daily here. Most notably, there’s been a lot of progress on the new game modes (Land Grab and Treasure Hunter) as well as experimentation with some new character abilities, and a completely new planet (Arenae, the desert temple world). I’m really excited about the potential of some new environmental interactions in Arenae.

Arenae, the desert temple world

Ali and I have also been working on filling out the soundtrack, which means adding secondary tracks for each planet. Here’s a preview of the alternate Arx-515 track:

I’m extremely excited to say that at this point, Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo have all accepted Invisigun Heroes into their development programs and I can publish on all three platforms, barring any unforeseen issues. I’m working on acquiring development kits so that I can start experimenting with console builds, but the desktop versions still take priority. I don’t want to derail the promised schedule, and it’s best to take everything one step at a time. But it will be nice to test on consoles once in a while just to address any major technical showstoppers early, since that’s much more difficult later on.

In life news, we had to move since the place I’ve been renting will be up for sale, so I was scrambling to find a new place amidst all of this. Luckily we found a place and will be moving this weekend, so I’ll be splitting this week between development and packing. That’s all for now!

Hey everyone! This week I’ve finally been able to dive back into almost full-time development on Invisigun. I knocked off a ton of bugs, implemented a couple new game modes and some prototype abilities, and completely replaced the controller input subsystem. It feels great to finally get back to coding, and for those that are curious, you can always view the latest changelog here. I will probably slow down with posting updates on the Kickstarter campaign page in the future, so the best resource for status updates and development progress here on out will be here on sombr.com, the forums, and my Twitter account.

Thousands of pins, bagged up and ready

I’ve also been busy preparing all physical backer rewards, and we’ll be shipping them out soon. My girlfriend and I made and bagged thousands of buttons, and Gallery Nucleus is underway with the art print production. All is going well!

There are still about 120 outstanding Kickstarter surveys, so if you haven’t filled it out yet, I can’t deliver your rewards! I’ll of course still be fulfilling late surveys, but it helps to get them in sooner rather than later. Also, all alpha backers that have filled out surveys should have received forum invites, so if you’re expecting one and haven’t received it, please check your spam filters. If you still can’t find the invite, just send me a message and I’ll clear it up.